Reader, I know for many of you also you have faced trials, perhaps that you didn't expect, that brought you into a time of turmoil or pain. Pain brings our life into sharp focus, and it can raise some serious questions in our hearts and minds.
For me the pain has been the pain of disgrace. As people spread painful lies about believers, about me, about my brothers and sisters, it is easy to feel alone. In fact, one of the most difficult aspects of pain is that it often causes us to feel alone, even if we have a wonderful, loving support structure all around us. In my short time following the Lord, any kind of pain I have gone through has produced this feeling of loneliness.
Yet, despite that feeling, I am coming to know more and more that in these times we are less alone than ever. In Isaiah 57, the Lord says something so astounding. He says:” For this is what the high and exalted One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (verse 15).
So, although in our emotions we keenly feel that sense of loneliness in our times of loss and pain, it is actually in that time when God draws nearest to us. Yes, when everything else seems like a loss, the love and consistency we have in Jesus shine out like the break of dawn; all we have to do is open our eyes and look. Then we see the truth of Paul's words in Romans 8:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–39)
I conclude with a poem, author unknown, that many of you may know. I pray that each of us will draw close to our Father in times of pain and trust in His skillful hands. Amen.
When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man and skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part,
When He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man
That all the world should be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways:
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him into shapes and forms of clay
Which only God can understand,
While man’s tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands;
Yet God bends but never breaks when man’s good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And with mighty power infuses him,
With every act induces him to try His splendor out,
God knows what He’s about 1
FOOTNOTES
“When God Wants to Drill a Man,” anonymous, year unknown.
Essene Press Team
